Impact and Knowledge Officer

About Us

The AECF (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a development institution that finances early and growth-stage businesses to innovate, create jobs, and leverage investments and markets to create resilience and sustainable incomes in rural and marginalized communities in Africa.

Since 2008, we have invested over US$ 220 million in over 420 businesses across sub-Sahara Africa focusing on Agribusiness, Renewable Energy, and Climate-smart Technologies. We have impacted more than 28 million lives, created over 25,000 jobs, and leveraged over US$ 757 million in matching funds to our portfolio companies.

AECF is headquartered in Kenya, with offices in Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia.

The Finance for Inclusive Growth (FIG) Somalia Program.

Funded by the European Union, FIG is a component of the Inclusive Local and Economic Development (ILED) program, whose objective is to revitalize and expand the local economy with a focus on livelihood enhancement, job creation, and broad-based inclusive growth for Somali women, youth and producers through:

• Designing and offering appropriate and sustainable financial products and services to clients through Somali Financial Institutions (FI) and ensuring targeted clients are growing and becoming more bankable.

• Catalyzing sustainable increase in lending to economic actors in Somalia, esp. youth, women, and producers.

• Building the capacity of the partner financial institutions to increasingly provide appropriate financial services for a wider scope of customers living in urban centers, and rural and decentralized areas in Somalia.

• Building the capacity of targeted end clients to profitably use the financing for business growth.

The Impact and Knowledge Officer is a key member of the FIG – Somalia delivery team and is responsible for supporting ongoing data collection, verification and analysis, impact measurement, and insight generation across the FIG portfolio of partner MFIs, their end clients, and other partners and activities. The incumbent will be an integral part of the AECF Impact and Knowledge team and will contribute to feeding data, insights, analysis, and impact stories into thought leadership, storytelling, and dissemination of learnings of the AECF on an ongoing basis.

This role will report to the Programme Manager, FIG.

Key Responsibilities

• Update and improve the portfolio monitoring plan of the MFIs and other future partners in FIG’s portfolio in line with AECF policies and procedures and the donor(s) and partner(s) requirements.

• Support the development of investee monitoring plans, targets, and budgets during the process of investee selection and reviewing as needed throughout the project lifecycle.

• Provide an evidence-based feedback loop to the program’s team on an ongoing basis, and contribute to producing, packaging and disseminating impact and change stories.

• Collaborate with partner MFIs to address any data discrepancies or inconsistencies, ensuring data integrity.

• Support partners in designing and disseminating research studies by providing relevant input.

• Ensure accurate and timely compliance with all reporting requirements both at FIG program level and at AECF institutional level (incl. supporting the preparation of annual AECF Impact reports, periodic donor reports, and ongoing ad hoc knowledge pieces).

• Maintain a dashboard to track performance against key impact indicators, providing feedback to all relevant teams on projects’ performance, as and when needed.

• Share learning from results measurement and impact analyses with the wider team.

• Develop and disseminate monthly short evidenced-based articles, updated project summary briefs, reports, human interest stories, website content etc in both Somali and English.

Suitable candidates should possess:

• A Bachelor’s Degree in economics, statistics, social sciences, or a related discipline. A Master’s Degree is desirable.

• Minimum five (5) years of experience in the same role.

• Priority will be given to professionals with prior experience in sustainable agriculture, climate finance, women’s economic empowerment, or financial inclusion.

• Understand the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) standards for private sector-led development in relevant sectors.

• Demonstrate productive drive in working with peers, partners, consultants, and others to achieve pre-targeted and measurable business results.

• Experience working with EU-funded projects or projects funded by other donors is highly desirable, with familiarity with requirements and compliance standards.

• Fluent in Somali and English for effective communication is required.

How to apply

The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants will be considered based on merit without regard to race, sex, colour, national origin, religion, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

AECF does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, meeting, processing, training, or any other fees).

If you believe, you can clearly demonstrate your abilities to meet the relevant criteria for the role register and apply on: https://recruitment.aecfafrica.org . To be considered, your application must be received by: 23rd May 2024.

For more information, please visit our careers page on www.aecfafrica.org

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.